


He's No Mustang (But He's a Hell of a Ride)

by innie



Category: Stumptown (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 01:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Grey can carry a tune.
Relationships: Grey McConnell & Dex Parios, Grey McConnell/Dex Parios
Comments: 23
Kudos: 54
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	He's No Mustang (But He's a Hell of a Ride)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thestarsapart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsapart/gifts).

> Just because I thoroughly enjoy Grey. (Set while Grey and Liz are dating.)

"We gotta stop meeting like this," Grey says out of the corner of his mouth like he's Humphrey Bogart or something. She could see him in a fedora, even if _Liz_ would probably love it. "Dex, I'm serious — hey, how loopy are you right now?"

There'd been painkillers that she distinctly remembers saying were not at all necessary and the overworked doctor at the free clinic was clearly worrying her pretty little head over Dex's _domestic situation_ and — "What?" she asks. "What did you say?"

"I said," Grey says, leaning across the bar all serious, "that I will rat you out to Ansel unless you start taking better care of yourself."

She scoffs. "What does that even mean, rat me out? He works here, he sees me either here or at home."

Grey's nodding, but he only ever does that when he's laying a trap. Can't find her keys, her ass — she's already twice the PI that, um, anyone else is. "And you're up-front with him about how you're feeling at all times?"

He's already smiling that _gotcha_ smile, so she flips the script. "I can't even believe you're not seeing the advantage here."

He's drying glasses like every bartender in every movie ever; she has a sneaking suspicion he's modeling his actions on them rather than real life, because come on: what kind of bar doesn't have a dishwasher with a drying mode? Or, Little Helper Elf Liz could always pop up where she's not wanted to dry whatever glasses Grey washes. "Yeah, what's the advantage to you coming in looking like you got dragged over a mile of bad road?"

The man is seriously exaggerating. All he can see of her injuries are a couple of abrasions on her forearms. She's been hiding the slice on her cheek by careful negotiation of her hair all night, and if that doc didn't see it, a sleepy-eyed bartender sure isn't about to. "Uh, the advantage is that I am a _seriously_ cheap date right now. It wouldn't even take me half a beer to get totally wasted right here, at this very moment. Actually, just give me a sip of yours." She steals it and swigs it over his protests, making a face when it hits her tastebuds. "What is this shit?"

He swipes it back from her, looking as offended as if she'd insulted his grandmother. Not that he even likes his grandma. "It's something I'm trying out, to see if it's worth stocking here."

"Spoiler: it's so not." She wipes at her tongue with a napkin. "Ugh, is that _melon_?"

"Evidently," he says, pointing at the picture on the label of a cantaloupe split in half, its orange flesh glistening as sticky-looking seeds spill from a . . . gelatinous crevice. It's gross and obscene and she can't stop looking at it.

"Are you fucking kidding —" he says abruptly, fingers threading through her hair to hold it away from her face. "You planning on hiding this all night?"

Maybe _he_ should be the PI, if he can find every little cut and bruise on her. "No," she says, laughing it off, but he's not playing along. He folds his arms and she stops laughing — her cheek is stinging from being pulled taut — and admires the way he's working that green shirt. She's so good at bullet-dodging that she could probably out-twist even Ansel when he's on a hula-hoop roll, but there's nothing that says she can't _look_ at what she's turning down.

"Has anything medicinal touched you since you got all those, or are you bucking for an infection?" he queries.

"Don't you have customers to attend to?"

"Yes," he says, his eyes not leaving her.

"I'm not going to keel over in the minute it takes you to pour that nice lady a drink." That nice lady isn't Liz; that's what makes her nice.

"You look like you might. Sit tight," he orders, like just because they're in his bar, what he says goes. She reaches again for his beer, remembers its betrayal, and looks around for something else to snag. The lights go out while she's still pondering.

"Alright, up," he says, coming around to her side of the bar. "Let's go."

She stands before she thinks and pays the price instantly when the painkillers and just everything — _life_ in general — make her too dizzy to stay upright.

"Whoa," he says, tucking an arm around her waist to steer her up to his apartment. He gets her on his sofa, and she kind of wants to apologize for maligning it before, because it's never been this fucking comfortable, cradling her like a baby. She hears a metallic snap and opens her eyes to see Grey's face so close that she's going kind of cross-eyed. "This is gonna sting a bit," he warns her like she hasn't been through literal firefights in a warzone.

She hisses when the damp cotton touches her split skin, and her fingers tangle with his over the pad on her cheek. Her stomach rumbles, empty, and she remembers that that melon-flavored monstrosity's the closest she's gotten to sustenance all day. He hears it too, evidently. "If I order dumplings, are you gonna stay awake long enough to eat them?"

"Yup," she swears, because it's about fifty-fifty and she likes those odds. She must have dozed off for a hot second, because she doesn't hear him placing an order and the next thing she knows, he's got enough dumplings to feed an army on the coffee table and she's snugged into his side. He's eating left-handed, his right arm curled around her and his right hand holding a bag of frozen lima beans — is _that_ how far he's willing to go for his stupid detoxes, that he'll buy _lima beans_? — to the side of her face, where he must have seen new bruises.

She's not stealthy enough to snag a dumpling without alerting him to the fact that she's now awake; that's something she's going to have to work on. But luck's finally with her again: her face is nicely numb and the first dumpling she gets is pork and the second is shrimp. And Grey's not saying a word about what she owes Ansel or worse, _herself_, and they're eating in a silence that's truly restful. She gives it five minutes, tops.

But he surprises her and makes it ten minutes of blissful gorging and tucking her face into the green softness of his shirt that smells like beer and salt and traces of his deodorant. "You good now?" he asks, tucking his chopsticks into the last empty container.

"Never better," she says, not bothering to move after tossing her own chopsticks away too. He heaves a sigh and she pokes him in the side. "Next track," she says, "I've already got this one memorized."

"Dex —" he says.

"Fast forward," she says, poking him again.

"I'm not your goddamn cheap-ass car," he says, a hint of danger in his voice.

She _likes_ danger.

She looks up at him, at the greying beard, broken nose, and soft crest of hair, and remembers that he'd been a really good kisser, better at that than a one-night stand had any right to be. She looks deep into his eyes and watches his face change around them, softening. "Fast forward," she says again.

His eyebrows slam down, flat and a little pissed. 🎶Private eye, watchin' you, watchin' your every move,🎶 he sings.

_Poke._

🎶Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.🎶

_Poke._

He grins. 🎶Highway to the danger zone.🎶

She hides a smile in his shirt. Sometimes he really is hilarious. Still, no need to let him know. _Poke._

🎶Take good care of yourself, you belong —🎶

She pushes off him and sits all the way up, dizzy but fighting it to get to her feet. "Please, Dex," he says, looking up at her and tossing the bag of lima beans on the table to hold out a steadying hand. "Just take care of yourself."

"Yeah," she says, her half-frozen and half-warm face cracking a grin. He looks disappointed, and this is _not_ what she needs right now. What she needs is a beer. "Don't I always?"


End file.
